NickA

I like the transparency and modularity of my pjb stuff ... but it's not loud and it is heavy "per decibel. Tried a friend's TC bg208 this week and for the price and portability it's pretty good and louder than my little flight case.... the sound is a bit muffled compared to the flghtcase though, it's not "up there" with AER, PJB, AI and he is thinking of trading up to a Markbass. Maybe we're being a bit precious..... saw Roy Babbngton with soft machine a few years back, playing through a cheap line six combo (sounded fine) and someone on here a while back ( gypsyjazzer?) Said they'd given up fussing about amps and bought a fender rumble...weighs nothing, sounds ok..audience don't care 😂. Loads of options these days with tiny class d amps and super light cabs.....wouldn't know where to start!

I've not been to the new "shop" yet...sad that they left Derby; glad they did you alright. Never go there without time to spare as I always end up chatting..and usually buying stuff! My gig bag, bow, rosin, strings, end pin and pickup are all from there 😂.

Don't think Stradivarius has access to plywood or ever made a double bass... so what it's a copy of is a mystery! What's the damage from the strings on soundpost out incident? I don't see any damage in the photos. If it just needs a sound post then someone will fit one for (probably) £100 -£200 or so. I was charged £30 for putting one back up. I have the tool to DIY now, but it's tricky and making a soundpost is quite hard as the ends need shaping and the length has to be exact. If the front ( table) is cracked then it's a right off. £1500 just to get the front off and any luthier will tell you it's not worth it as you'd be spending £2000 + on a bass that would then be worth < £1000 when fixed. I've been through this with my orchestras bass. One luthier refused to touch it and the other needed his arm twisted to do any work as he reckoned he could sell us a replacement for less than the repair cost. That bass is now playable, but we did have the original sound post and the table didn't have to come off. It still needs a new bridge (£200 odd) and ideally a new fingerboard ...new neck even...not going to happen on my watch; even tho it's fully carved with a decent table. Bass bags, my local bass shop, reckon they skip loads of laminate basses...simply because a new laminate made by Chinese slaves is cheaper for the insurers than even minor repairs by a UK luthier ☹️ awful situation.

Higher tension strings are more blistery I guess... But the two main things are how often you play and how hard you pluck. Could it be that in playing more Arco you're playing less pizz? Don't drop the pizz practise. Might also be laying in harder with the quieter strings? Ease off and turn up the amp. I went to hear Alec Dankworth once; he played hard and fast for 2hrs; I asked him why his fingers weren't bleeding. He said that he does get blisters after his annual two week break, but once his fingers had hardened up, the trick is to turn the amp up and play more gently. Sharing duty between index and second finger helps too.

Much easier to know where you are on a double bass due to that nice neck joint. Also perhaps a small matter of history in that double bass players are looking at music so can't see their hands so good technique developed to ensure you don't need to. I almost never look at my left hand on dB but often have a quick check on that long long ebass neck. ( No lines on the necks of my fretless bases, dots though)

https://reverb.com/uk/item/68538880-ernie-ball-music-man-bongo-4-hh-2004-metallic-red pretty good value I think at £1500 . £3150 new. I think the Wal is better still, but not > 4x better

The Warwick is only 1 1/2 humbuckers but actually sounds better with the bridge pickup tapped ( jazz bass mode).

Get a Wal (or two) ... two lovely fat humbuckers each with their own tone control. Available in 4, 5 & 6 strings, with and without frets. The only downside is the price .... and they don't slap very well.

That circuit will do some combinations ( not series and parallel of individual pickups though) and should be hum free as it single coils both pickups. You want tone as well?! There's no pleasing some people 😂. Before the volume pot, put a pot in series with a cap with the cap connected to ground. Trouble with passive tone controls is that they depend on the impedance of the pickups, which will be different with every combination.

Series or parallel the coils in either or both pickups is an option ( that's two switches) series or parallel the two pickups ( one more switch) also ok. Put volume knobs after the switches for each pickup, then in parallel mode you can blend the pickups. I guess if for each pickup you have a choice of series, parallel or single then series or parallel the two pickups, then some combinations may be a bit noisy ....then again so it is on a standard jazz bass if you don't use both pickups. And changing the switch positions will change the volume. This'll keep me busy during boring teams meetings.

So many lovely basses, so little time! Those two are as good as you'd ever need really. I mean it's nice to own a Wal ( or two ) and good to know they won't lose value too much ... but they're not really miles ahead of the pack. ACG, the Wallish, these two, my mate's Skjold .. all great. ...and yet current pop and rock is full of Fenders. Not so, Jazz happily... just bought Hiromi's Sonic Wonderland with Hadrien Feraud playing a fretless MTD .. sounds great.

If you split the pickups you'll probably get a load of noise pickup. Look at an HH stingray and you'll see there are only certain combinations of coils possible (5), that's to make sure there is always some humbucking going on. Anyway, think what combinations of the four coils you want; that's 24 without series / parallel combinations, but only 5 if you want to minimise hum... and even those won't work perfectly because the two pickups aren't the same. Sort out some combinations and I'll see what can be done with switches and knobs!

Fretless was everywhere in the 80s. Now it's all boring fretted fenders. Do it! You may start a revival.

Second on the right = all he really needs 😉

Realise my favourite bass has a 26mm string spacing at the bridge, though only 10 at the nut. It weighs 10.5kg too.😁

😁. I was trying 5ers out at bass direct ...when the proprietor came up and said "I can tell you're a 4 string player, you're in first position". Hmm yes. It's quite a good thing to go 5th fret... only going back to the nut for those sub E notes... but it still does my head in, and I think using the full length of the string sounds better too.

Cheers. Really useful links.

Absobloodylootely. If you like the sound you just have to.

You can ride a coque horse there even 🙂 Caswells shop is a bit industrial estatey, they're mostly mail order, but nice enough if you just roll up. But of a show room.

I think my 5 string is 18mm at the bridge..same as two of my 4s ....and feels pretty huge. And then my Warwick has the same string spacing as the Wal, but feels much narrower due to the thinner neck, and a jazz bassy fretless I have is 20mm at the bridge but only 10mm at the nut...that one feels really narrow. Can people really tell the difference? Doesn't spacing at the nut and the neck profile also matter? Just interested as to why 19mm at the bridge is so critical compared to eg how the bass sounds ...And all the other dimensions.